All things Dairy

jimmer

Member
Location
East Devon
All farms are different. I am well aware of that. But it does seem odd that you have land that won’t carry cattle late Feb/March which sooooo suit in calf Autumn milkers yet dries out as soon as it see’s a summer breeze.
our visit from natural England has really made me think whether if we can find a successful way of getting new seeds in with out ploughing whether a plough should ever come onto the platform again. So my question is yes in the short term you are growing more DM by cropping/ ploughing as much land as you do but will/is there a price to pay.? Is the plough reducing the water holding capacity of your land ?
Banning the plough has meant I grazed a new ley 6 weeks after sowing in November
And will take cows again in the spring at the same time as the rest of the platform
 
Having ad lib silage they don't eat as much barley and ammonia smell of the barley means you are sure they will eat some silage and not just fill up with barley. The PH of silage at 4 and the barley at 9 is a good combination. Have tryed just barley and straw but they never seem to do as well, not sure if you can overload the ruman on alkaline the same as acid?

About 7.5kgs barley per day per head, so more like 675kgs for the finishing period.
Where you killing them at?
 
Location
East Mids
I just hate it. Hate everything about it.
Hate that the cows don't milk as well as normal
Hate how milking seems to take 4 times as long
Hate that the cows sh!t everywhere
Hate putting the samplers up
Hate taking the samplers down
Hate not having the radio on
Hate getting the information ready for the recorder
Hate seeing the 200 quid come out my bank account every month
Etc etc
Just Hate it 😂😂
Getting the information for the recorder.... I can't think of anything other than a few things like actual milking time on the day that is specifically for milk recording, all the rest, calvings, services etc is just normal herd management information that you need anyway?
 
@Beef farmer how much sediment do you think is in the slurry that comes out of your sand lanes? I'm thinking about building one this year and i'm wondering how viable it would be to pump into a tower once it has been through?
Bugger all, have not been in our lagoon or stired it for 3 years.
Will go in there this summer when the cows are dry. Need all the fert we can get!
 

jimmer

Member
Location
East Devon
Was half decent older ley with a lot of clover, but the Yorkshire fog was taking over
Grazed three times last spring, roundup and fym then combi drilled with turnips and redstart first week of May
Grazed crop from mid July till mid September
More slurry and roundup then drilled with vaderstad about 20th September
Grazed lightly to try to suppress chickweed/cooch grass on 20th ish of November
 

frederick

Member
Location
south west
Bugger all, have not been in our lagoon or stired it for 3 years.
Will go in there this summer when the cows are dry. Need all the fert we can get!
@DairyGrazing . What I think if I'm right you have to remember beef farmers are more settlement tanks before the lagoon that wash the sand out using the rainfall off the self feed area. Passage of the slurry would be quite slow.
A sand lane normally is faster passage. Without a huge amount of dilution or floodwashing it probably won't drop out enough.
I ordered the tower before Xmas. My hope is a screen separator, sand lane then I'm adding another tank before the tower equivalent to 5 days slurry to mean 5 day passage in a liquid suspension before the tower. With the 5 day tank designed to be emptied by a slew. It will add to cost but when a roof is on the tower I don't want to take it off to often.
I'll let you know in 3 years if it works.
 

pappuller

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
M6 Hard shoulder
On the subject of Ploughing, I'm trying to avoid it but I can't really think of a way to get maize in the ground without it? I have access to a mzuri but not sure that it will work? Anyone managed it?
Direct drilled 8 acres June 4th with a vaaderstaad a month later that the conventional stuff, it did as well as could be expected and I'd be interested in trying it again sowing a month earlier. It went into a roundupped grass stubble
 

In the pit

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembrokeshire
our tack sheep arrived yesterday, first thought this morning, are the buggers still where they are meant to be, luckily yes. They have oceans of grass, but trust them ? never.
no idea what the going rate sheep/week is, 30p? pretty irrelevant really, so much grass about, proportion needs coming off.
used to keep 500, now they are a necessary evil.
Marvellous
Abundance of grass , let sheep eat it all off , put expensive fertiliser on it to get it to grow ready for the cows sometime in middle of year
Wish I had thought of this
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Marvellous
Abundance of grass , let sheep eat it all off , put expensive fertiliser on it to get it to grow ready for the cows sometime in middle of year
Wish I had thought of this
1/2 rotted grass, from rust, into silage or cows, ain't my idea of feeding, good grass is green.
1st cut last year, 29th march, cut again, approx every 5 weeks, why so much there now, didn't do a 6th cut, face testing clamp, coming back at regularly at16 % protein, bales of the red clover leys, at 19%, cows milking well, what's not to like.
We have our methods, apart from spring grazing, they work well for us, we only went spring, because no labour worth having available, had decent weather, could have worked, who knows, we didn't, and were easily able to swop back.
And sheep convert that grass into little brown pellets, that are worth a lot more than crappy grass.
 

Jdunn55

Member
I just never understand why recording is any different.
24:24 one person milking one recorder won't take a second longer when recording.
Why do you switch the radio off if you like it on. That might be unsettling the cows.
Because my cows aren't freeze branded so I have to tell the recorder all the tag numbers as I wipe them and can't be dealing with repeating them 4 times because she can't hear over the top of whatever radio 1 is playing at that time in the morning 😂 it doesn't take that much longer tbf but it definitely extends milking by enough to pee me off 😂
 

Scholsey

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Because my cows aren't freeze branded so I have to tell the recorder all the tag numbers as I wipe them and can't be dealing with repeating them 4 times because she can't hear over the top of whatever radio 1 is playing at that time in the morning 😂 it doesn't take that much longer tbf but it definitely extends milking by enough to pee me off 😂

Any reason not to freezebrand? Especially as your looking to get reliefs in for milking etc
 

Jdunn55

Member
Any reason not to freezebrand? Especially as your looking to get reliefs in for milking etc
Feed system all works off eid (when the feeders are working - new ones by the end of the month thank god) so no real reason to freeze brand, but mainly because I don't like the look of them. I don't like how they don't work on white cows or some get misinterprentated with 1's for 7's etc, just think if they don't have them there's no confusion
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
saves a lot of mistakes though.
can use numbered collars
and l sort of recall, easy identification, was on one of the assurance schemes.
as a lad, they all had names, endless arguments when the hfrs calved, thankfully when we got to 100, freeze branded them, 1971 ish
 
Feed system all works off eid (when the feeders are working - new ones by the end of the month thank god) so no real reason to freeze brand, but mainly because I don't like the look of them. I don't like how they don't work on white cows or some get misinterprentated with 1's for 7's etc, just think if they don't have them there's no confusion
Are you not able to access the EID number somehow?
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
I love the plough works fine on my farm. We did sumo some wheat stubble then combi drill grass into it which has worked well. Perhaps I need to find some sandals out 🤔🤠
Maybe start with the "I'm a regen farmer " t shirt it's all the fashion at the minute.




Means sweet FA but gives you a feel good label and a righteousness akin to veganism.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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